Wilfred Rhodes

Wilfred Rhodes Biography

Like most Yorkshiremen, he was shrewd, dour, played hard and was not given to affability on the field. Yet, when one met him after his retirement, tales of cricket flowed from his tongue, unabated like a perennial and joyful river.

Wilfred Rhodes was a gifted all-rounder — a left-arm spinner and a self-made batsman. He scored 31 short of 40,000 runs in First-class cricket with 58 centuries. Yet, his more important duty was to roll his arm over again and again, which he did with considerable relish, for 1110 matches, picking up a colossal 4204 wickets at 16.72.

No one has taken more wickets in First-class cricket.

He did come in as a No. 11 at the beginning, from where he put on 130 for the last wicket with Reginald ‘Tip’ Foster at Sydney in 1903.

By 1912, however, he had worked his way up the order, opening the batting and putting on a record 323 with Jack Hobbs. He is one of the three men to have batted at all eleven positions in Test matches.

However, he was primarily a bowler — of uncanny accuracy and flight. During the first five years of his career, he had made the most of his youth and early ability to turn the ball with some sterling bowling efforts. While he spun the balls in England, he hardly purchased turn on the Australian grounds. But that did not deter him. He varied his length, subtly changed his flight, and was uncannily accurate.

Later in his career, when his fingers could not turn it as sharply as in the days of youth, he could work on the batsman’s weaknesses like none other. Besides, he stuck meticulously to his field.

Ernest Tyldesley once remarked that he often had no alternative but to play at least three balls an over, on a batsman’s wicket, straight to mid-off, an inch off the spot where Rhodes had planted mid-off.

To the end of his days, Rhodes claimed that he had never been cut or pulled. Exaggeration though it undoubtedly is, it does underline that he seldom, if ever, pitched short.

His batsmanship, on the other hand, was a self-taught trade — performed and perfected with common sense and a lot of application. It was never a thing of beauty — EW Swanton maintaining that he was a craftsman rather than an artist. He played straight, relying on the drive and eschewed the cut — which he felt was ‘never a business stroke’. However, he elevated his returns with the willow to a level that made him the default choice to partner Hobbs at the top of the English batting order.

Picked for England at the age of 49 for the Ashes decider at The Oval, 1926, he responded with 2 for 35 and 4 for 44. In the first innings he got Bill Woodfull, and in the second, Bill Ponsford, Herbie Collins and Warren Bardsley. In the last encounter with the old foe, he scooped out the cream from the fare. England won by 289 runs.

His Test career started with the final appearance of WG Grace, and ended at the age of 52 when Don Bradman was well and truly established. He ended with 2,325 runs at 30.19 and 127 wickets at 26.96 from 58 Tests, as one of the greatest all-rounders of all time.

JM Kilburn, the chronicler of Yorkshire cricket, called Wilfred Rhodes “the one-man university of the game.”